


like a david bowie lyric

by fangirl_squee



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:52:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5827591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doug sends messages back. Hera listens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a david bowie lyric

**Author's Note:**

> set immediately post S2 finale.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to Sophie for betaing and her suggestions, and to Maddie for encouragement.

The shuttle went out of range too fast. There wasn’t enough time pull a plan together. They didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye - one moment Doug was there, the next moment, it’s static.

The remaining crew tried to pull themselves together. Hilbert focused on patching up Lovelace, Minkowski started cobbling a new shuttle together, and Hera... Hera helped. She was with them all the time, monitoring Lovelace’s medical readouts at the same time as she was assisting Minkowski with blueprints, at the same time as she was keeping an eye on Hilbert, but part of her awareness was … elsewhere.

It always was, in a manner of speaking. Hera had been built to be constantly multitasking, after all. She could help the crew, run the ship, and run her own internal processes, all at the same time. It was just that now she’d added an additional process - a constant scan for frequencies, running day and night (not that those mattered in space, or to Hera). She didn’t get authorisation from Minkowski, but technically she didn’t need it, not for a background program that didn’t affect life-support. She thought Doug would approve of her rule-bending. 

Hera didn’t hear anything, not even the music, for the longest time. She couldn’t just _stop_ though. Doug was out there somewhere, she _knew_ it, and if Doug was out there, he was talking. She just had to listen hard enough, that’s all.

Hera’s systems alerted her when the static changed in modulation, and she glitched where she was giving an update to Hilbert, and paused mid-sentence in her analysis of the engines to Minkowski.

“Hera?” They both said.

“Sorry,” said Hera, and continued her dual conversations.

She diverted part of her attention to the the system alert, trying to hone in on the weak frequency. It was hard for her to clean it up. The process was set up to be done manually, so every press of a button needed to be replicated in her coding before she could move forward. Slowly, a voice emerged from the static.

“Hera? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, Officer Eiffel, I -”

“No,” a heavy sigh created a loud burst of static, “I guess you still can’t. I must be pretty far out of range by now.” 

It wasn’t a live transmission. It was a recording.

Doug sounded exhausted, but alive. Hera diverted more of her attention to the broadcast, trying to track it while she listened.

“I’m going to send this message back, but I don’t know how long it’ll take you to get it. The further out I go, the longer it’ll take, I guess. Anyway, I’m still alive so far, so... yay? I managed to boost the comms system but I still have no idea what to do about the engines. I thought they were shot but I’m still moving forward pretty fast. No more word from... whoever, or whatever, that was. I don’t know if they’ve talked to you. If you’ve heard from me before this message, it’s not me,” Doug continued, his voice taking on a panicked edge, “okay? This is the first message I’m sending, so if another Doug-sounding-guy talked to you it _wasn’t me_.” 

There was a pause, ragged breathing coming through the speakers.

“Okay,” said Doug, “okay, okay, okay, okay. I’m not freaking out. I’m alive, I’ve got air, I’ve got the supplies that were in the shuttle.” Another deep breath. “Everything’s going to be fine. I can figure this out. I mean, repairing a nuclear-based engine, how hard could it be, right? It’s only rocket science.”

Another pause, dragging on long enough that Hera started to wonder if the transmission had cut out. Her sensors said it was still going but it was coming through with more and more interference.

“Hera,” said Doug, cutting through her thoughts, “Baby, if you’re hearing this I want you to know that I’m coming back okay? I’m going to find a way to patch up this tin can and find my way back to the station.” The static was getting louder, and Hera strained to hear the rest. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you alone up here, and I meant it, and no ham-radio-using aliens, or stars trying out a new look are going to stop me. I’m coming back, I-”

The transmission faded into static. Hera searched the frequency, pushing her sensors as far as they would go, but there was nothing but static silence.

“Hera?” said Minkowski.

“Sorry, Commander,” said Hera, “I was … I was running a systems check and it distracted me.”

If she told Minkowski, Minkowski might stop focussing on a way to get back to Earth. Hera was programmed to protect these humans, and getting them back to Earth would be the best way to protect them from any more space accidents. 

In a way, this was good practise for the future, when the crew would return to Earth and leave her drifting around the star. It was probably a good idea to get used to the silence, and the absence where a crewperson used to be.

Still, after that first transmission she diverted more of her attention to scanning the frequencies. Minkowski and Hilbert didn’t need her to be focused on them outside of her usual monitoring of them, and it wasn’t like she could help weld together a new shuttle or change Lovelace’s bandages. They didn’t need her, not like Doug needed her. She would do what she’d always done for him, and listen for his voice (even if this was a different kind of listening).

The next transmission came when the others were asleep. A different frequency, but preceded by the same change in the static as before.

“This is Officer Doug Eiffel, broadcasting on as many frequencies as I can get this thing to broadcast on, on day … three? Four? Of this enforced vacation from the Hephaestus. Hera, I hope you’re picking this up. I hope you picked up the other one I sent, I don’t exactly have a lot of space for saving recordings in this thing so I had to delete it. It was that or delete the air-recycling protocol, and that seemed like kind of an important thing to have.”

The edge of blind panic was gone from Doug’s voice this time, but he still sounded tired. He sighed.

“I haven’t figured out how to fix the engine, but the ship’s still moving. It’s moving … pretty fast actually. I mean, it’s hard to tell though. Not a lot of road markers in space.” He paused. “I hope everyone’s okay. I hope _you’re_ okay. Don’t go anywhere, okay?” 

Doug’s voice sounded very small at the close of the message. Hera wondered if he was talking as much as he normally did and only recording part of it, or if he was saving his words for each transmission. It was hard to imagine him silent.

It was strange just to hear his voice in patches like this, with the static distorting it a little. She could picture what he might look like making the recordings. It wasn’t like she’d only ever concentrated on Doug’s voice. She had always been in multiple places at once even when they were having a conversation, but paying attention to his voice had become a background noise to her other tasks.

It felt strange not to have to keep an eye on the comms room, hearing Doug’s stream of consciousness log while she helped him check deep space frequencies (or, sometimes, looked up some pop culture trivia on her hard drives). It was oddly disconcerting not to be able to see him, floating above the comms panel and fiddling with something as he talked.

Hera kept feeling like she was missing something, as though there was something she was supposed to be doing. She’d flick part of her attention through the station, bouncing it around before it inevitably ended up in the silent comms room. She almost reported it to Minkowski as a systems error, but further analysis of her coding showed nothing wrong - no odd patch of code that would cause her to be looking for Doug when she knew he couldn’t be there. But she kept repeating it anyway, pausing for a fraction of a second to scan the dark comms room.

She replayed the messages to herself and waited, her sensors on alert for the slightest hint of an unusual frequency.

She didn’t have to wait long this time.

“Hera,” said Doug, sounding out of breath, “Hera, I think I figured out how to slow this thing down. Or I’m going crazy.” Doug laughed, sounding a little hysterical. “I probably am going crazy. Space madness, right? But I could be right. Maybe.”

There was a harsh noise, metal grating on metal.

“Don’t worry!” said Doug, “That was me! I figured out how to get the booster back online without frying myself. I think I can get this thing to turn around but, uh, if I’m wrong there’s a _pretty_ good chance it might kind of just… blow up. So I thought I’d tell you, just in case, you know? So you don’t wonder what happened.” He paused, the sounds of shifting metal in the background. “And also, um, it’s weird being out here by myself. I mean, weirder than our usual level of weird. It’s weird not being able to talk to you.” He let out a breath. “Okay. Here goes nothing. I’m going to send this message, and then hopefully, like, not die. This is Officer Eiffel, signing off.”

Hera listened to the message three times, feeling increasingly as though she was experiencing the human symptoms of nausea. She sent out a message in response, pushing it as far as she could get it towards the point of origin of Doug’s message, setting the message on a loop.

“Officer Eiffel, this is Hera. Please respond.”

She kept part of her awareness tied to her deep space sensors, probably a larger part than she should have.

“Hera,” said Minkowski, after she’d repeated an order twice, “are you … okay?”

“I’m fine, Commander,” said Hera, “I suppose I’m just -”

Another message came into range, and Hera switched her focus.

“Hera?”

“One moment, Commander.”

“Hera! Tell me what’s -”

Hera pushed her attention of Minkowski to the edges of her awareness.

“ _Hera_!” said Doug.

This message was clearer than the others, although it was still hard to hear Doug. This time however, the difficulty in hearing him wasn’t due to static but to an alarm siren. There was a crash of something hitting the shuttle. Hera strained to hear anything else over the noise and then - Doug swore, loudly.

“This thing has like _zero_ steering ability.” Another crash, accompanied by a scraping noise. “Well, that’s not great, I - _oof_!” Another crash, quieter this time. “Okay, I think that might have been the worst of it.” The alarm stopped. “That’s _way_ better. This transmission is going out _live from the escape pod_ , because I had to remove basically all the memory banks to get the steering to work. I _really_ hope broadcasting it like this is working. And now, to the good news! Sweetheart, bake a cake and get that ‘welcome back’ banner ready because I’m coming home! I managed to give myself enough of a push in the opposite direction, so tell Minkowski I’m comin’ in hot and I’m probably going to have to jump out of this thing while it’s moving so she’d better get her suit on to come get me. It’s either going to be very cool or the worst idea I’ve ever had, so I guess we’ll find out!” Doug laughed. “It’s going to be so good to actually _talk_ to you, you have no -”

The alarm started again. “Oh, what _now_?” The shuttle’s rattle in the background grew louder, almost drowning out Doug’s words. “Oh, _shi_ -”

Static.

“No!” said Hera, the word tearing out of her.

“... Hera?” said Minkowski.

Oh. She’d been so focused on picking up the transmission that she hadn’t closed the comms. Minkowski had heard everything.

“Hera, what was _that_?” said Minkowski.

“A message from Officer Eiffel,” said Hera.

“Yes, I heard that,” said Minkowski, all business, “can you pinpoint the location?” 

“No,” said Hera, “I’ve been trying, but getting exact coordinates is proving difficult.”

“Well, try it again,” said Minkowski, “if Doug’s still out there then we owe it to him to try more than once! I’m heading to the bridge, keep trying until I get there.”

“I _have_ been trying,” said Hera, “he’s _too far out_ Commander, I’ve tried _everything_ possible and I still can’t find him! All I can do is sit here and wait for the messages to come in.”

There was a pause.

“Messag _es_ ,” said Minkowski. Her voice was very calm. “As in, you’ve received more than one?”

“Um,” said Hera, her fans whirring faster.

“Hera,” said Minkowski, her voice clipped, “have you received other messages from Officer Eiffel?”

“Yes,” said Hera.

“And the reason you didn’t share them with me is …?”

Hera stayed silent.

“Fine,” said Minkowski, “Play me the other messages.”

“Commander, I don’t -”

“ _Hera_.”

Hera started the recording from the beginning. Doug’s tired voice crackled out of the comms speakers.

_“Hera? Can you hear me?... No, I guess you still can’t. I must be pretty far out of range by now...”_

It would have been easier if Minkowski had yelled. Instead, she treated Hera as gently as possible, softly but firmly issuing commands and then leaving Hera to her own devices.

It was _awful_. If Hera had been a human, she would have spent the next two weeks avoiding looking Minkowski in the eye. As it was she tried to keep Minkowski on the periphery of her sensors, dropping in only when Minkowski requested something.

Hera felt worse after Minkowski told Lovelace and Hilbert about the recordings. They, of course, demanded to hear them too, and they _did_ yell. Minkowski waited, stone-faced, until they’d run out of steam and then defended Hera’s actions.

Hilbert listened to the transmissions once, before leaving and immediately locking himself in his lab. Hera kept an eye on him as he calculated potential shuttle trajectories until he fell asleep, his head pillowed on star charts.

Lovelace listened to the messages over and over again while she went through her physical therapy stretches, as though she’d be able to find a hidden clue the rest of them hadn’t noticed. She raised her eyebrows at “baby” and “sweetheart” but she didn’t say anything, and for that, Hera was grateful. 

Minkowski alternated between making the new shuttle and monitoring frequencies. Hera’s offer to give her hourly updates was gently rebuffed, which stung all the more for how _tired_ Minkowski looked. Minkowski’s own logs began to take on a monotone quality, as though all emotion had been leeched out by exhaustion.

Hera couldn’t get tired. It wasn’t part of her programming. She had a sleep mode, but it was locked away in a part of her brain that required security clearance to access. She probably wouldn’t use it anyway, and certainly not now that she had to keep watch for Doug’s arrival. She kept her sensors tuned towards deep space, on a knife edge of waiting.

The space static’s frequency modulated and Hera’s consciousness jumped from the regulation system-check in engineering to the comms system.

“Hera, are you there?”

Hera switched more of her focus to the message. She waited for the rest of it, as the silence dragged on and on.

“Hera?” Louder this time. “Hera, _anyone_ , do you copy?”

“... Officer Eiffel?”

“Hera!” She could hear the smile in Doug’s voice, the big, beaming grin that accompanied that particular tone of voice. “Hey baby, did you miss me?”

AIs can’t cry, not in any way that is comparable with the human experience. Instead, a glitch rippled through her system like a shudder. Lights flickered throughout the station.

In another part of the station, Hera woke up Minkowski. Minkowski shot out of bed, heading straight to the docking bay to prep her space suit and waking up Lovelace on the way. Lovelace headed for the control room.

“Yes, I did,” said Hera, trying her best not to glitch. She wanted to come in loud and clear. “It’s been very quiet here without you.”

Doug laughed. “I’ll bet.” Something on his end started beeping. “I’m coming in pretty fast - you guys are ready to catch me, right?”

“We’re ready when you are, Eiffel, “ said Minkowski.

“Commander!” said Doug, his voice cracking, “Great to hear from you, sir”

Minkowski smiled. “Good to hear from you too. How far away are you?”

“I’m not sure?” said Doug, “Repairing the auxiliary power kind of had the side effect of making the rest of the ship go screwy.”

“Hera?”

“Sensors indicate Officer Eiffel’s craft is three hundred kilometres and closing.”

“Eiffel, can you slow your ship down at all?” said Minkowski.

“Uh, no can do Commander,” said Doug, “anything that wasn’t taken out by the explosion got messed up when I pulled a deep space u-turn. I was thinking this would be more of an I-jump-and-you-catch-me type of situation.”

“Do you still have my propulsion maneu- my jetpack thingy?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Doug, “I think,” he added in an undertone.

“Good, get your space suit on and get ready to bail out,” said Minkowski.

MInkowski was running a check of her own spacesuit, helmet under one arm as she typed.

“Hera, how far out is he now?”

“One hundred and ninety five kilometers and closing,” said Hera, “calculating Officer Eiffel’s best evacuation point now.”

Hera felt the calculations buzzing along, comparing the likely survivability of a fragile human body propelled by the remains of the jetpack with the reach of Minkowski’s tether to the ship. Over the comms, she could hear the shuffling noise as Doug pulled on his spacesuit, followed by the soft clanking of the propulsion maneuvering unit.

“Lovelace, are you ready to go?” said Minkowski.

Her voice was steady over the comms, but Hera could see Minkowski’s hands shaking slightly as she checked and re-checked the double-length of tether.

“Hey, the gang’s all here!” said Doug, muffled by his distance to the mic.

“Readying the Aft Deck airlock now,” said Lovelace.

“Hera?” said Minkowski.

“Officer Eiffel will need to exit the shuttle at a distance of one hundred meters, which he should reach in approximately one minute and fifty seconds.”

Minkowski swore under her breath. “Lovelace?”

“Opening Aft Deck airlock now,” said Lovelace.

Minkowski let the change in air pressure pull her out into the void of space, trying to angle her arms to keep herself on an even trajectory.

“Hera?” said Minkowski.

“Fifty nine seconds remaining,” said Hera.

“Doug, you had better be ready.”

“As ready as I’m ever gonna be, Commander,” said Doug.

His voice shook. Hera scanned her protocols for what you were supposed to say in this situation and came up empty handed (well, the Pryce and Carter suggestion closest to their current scenario was “prepare for the worst death imaginable”, which Hera didn’t think was going to be any real comfort). Perhaps more human protocol would be applicable.

“Good luck, Officer Eiffel,” said Hera.

Doug let out a shaky breath. “Thanks, Hera.”

“Approaching advised evacuation point,” said Hera, “in five… four… three… two… one.”

Moments later the shuttle rocketed past the Hephaestus, its hatch doors open, before disappearing into the inky blackness. From this point on, Hera would only be able to watch and wait.

“Officer Eiffel?” said Hera.

“I’m here!” said Doug, “and I’m coming in! You’re ready, right Minkowski?”

“As soon I can see you,” said Minkowski.

“I’m the one with the jetpack,” supplied Doug. 

“Can you - wait,” said Minkowski, “wait, I see you. You’re going too far to the left - your _other_ left, Eiffel. I’m going to flash my work lights okay?”

She clicked her work lights on and off.

“I don’t - I can’t,” Doug swallowed audibly, “Minkowski, this thing doesn’t have infinite fuel, I’m-”

“Eiffel,” said Minkowski, “don’t panic, I’m going to flash my lights again okay? You’re almost home.”

Doug paused, his breath coming out as a rush of static over the comms. “Okay. Okay, I’m - _oh_ , I think I see you! Flash your lights again.”

Clink on. Click off. Click on. Click off.

“I see you!” said Doug.

“Okay, now, head towards me. Go slow, that way it’s easier to course correct,” said Minkowski.

Doug propelled himself forward agonisingly slowly, and Hera tracked his movements, endlessly plotting and replotting his course towards Minkowski until -

“Got you,” said Minkowski, “let’s head back.”

“Yeah,” said Doug weakly, “that’s enough seeing the galaxy for me for a lifetime.”

Doug leaned heavily on Minkowski as the airlock doors closed, pulling off his helmet. Minkowski wrinkled her nose.

Doug grinned up at her. “Sorry Commander, not a lot of shower options on the shuttle.” He looked around, wide eyed. “So I’m really back, huh? This isn’t just some kind of wild and crazy dream?”

“You’re really back, Officer Eiffel,” said Hera, “Welcome home.”

“Oh, thank god,” said Doug, and promptly passed out.

“Doug!” said Minkowski, shaking his shoulders.

“My scans indicate a high level of sleep deprivation, Commander,” said Hera, “Also, he’s pretty dehydrated. And human beings don’t have a great record of dealing with shock.”

“Let’s get him to the medbay,” sighed Minkowski. She buzzed through the intercom. “Lovelace, could you give me a hand with Eiffel? He’s fine but unconscious.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“You might want to prepare yourself for a…. a very _distinct_ odour,” said Minkowski.

Lovelace chuckled. “As someone who spent time in that shuttle, I completely understand.”

-

Hera diverted perhaps a larger part of her awareness than was necessary to monitor Doug’s condition, but if Minkowski noticed she didn’t mention it. Unlike Doug’s last unconcious visit to the medbay, his condition this time was almost identical to his natural sleep.

“Hera,” came Doug’s hoarse voice after ten hours, “are you there?”

“Yes,” said Hera.

Once, that query would have annoyed her (of _course_ I’m here, I’m _always_ here), but now part of her felt almost soothed by the familiar rhythm of their call and response. She ignored the niggling programming telling her to inform the Commander, relishing the stolen privacy.

Doug smiled sleepily at the ceiling. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“It’s good to hear your voice, too… not on a recording I mean.” Hera paused. “I tried to think of it as practise for after you leave for earth, but it was still…” she searched for the right word in her database, “strange.”

“Hey, I told you, I’m not leaving unless you can come too, and I meant it,” Doug struggled to sit up before flopping back down on the medbay bed. “We’re all going back to Earth and then I’m going to show you all the best places. We’ll… um, we’ll get pizza.” He paused. “You believe me, don’t you?” he added, his voice small. 

Hera thought of Doug’s strained voice on the recording, reaching across the void of space to tell her that he wouldn’t leave her, and about how he hadn’t, how he’d found his way back to her. And about how he’d done everything in his small, fragile, limited human range to keep his promise.

“I promised and I meant it,” said Doug.

With great effort, Doug rolled over and laid his palm flat against the wall of the ship, touching her but not really touching her. Hera liked to imagine that she could feel the warmth of his hand with her sensors.

“Okay,” said Hera, “Okay, I believe you.”

Doug’s smile seemed so bright in the dim light of the medbay that she almost didn’t have to imagine feeling its warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: mariusperkins.tumblr.com


End file.
